


Pressure

by Bluerose161



Category: Steven Universe - Fandom
Genre: F/F, I forget the name of it, In a more character developed way, Lapis is trying to go through her trauma, PTSD, So this is my version, Spoilers, This is part of the episode where Peridot gives her the tape recorder, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 11:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17960063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluerose161/pseuds/Bluerose161
Summary: Lapis is still healing through the trauma of what Jasper had done to her. And the pool Peridot created her had became a safety vat to letting her mind wander and process.





	Pressure

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first SU fanfiction, but I really wanted to make it. Ever since I watched some videos on peoples opinions on Lapis as a character, even her as my favorite, I realized the show made her lack in the sense of fully going through the stages of pain and grief when it comes to healing after an abusive relationship.  
> Though many have argued that Lapis is the abuser in the relationship regarding Jasper, I personally go with the depiction that they both were abusive to each other, just that Jasper was a more brute force with it whilst maybe Lapis used words to degrade, but that's just me. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is my personal connotation of the characters in SU, the characters originally belong to Rebecca Sugar and Cartoon Network. This also contains PTSD, former abuse, and self-healing. I'm not sure if I'll continue this, but if I do, it will all be about Lapis healing after the abuse of Jasper and would go out of canon

Nights at the barn were blank and peaceful. 

Although Lapis and Peridot didn't require sleep like humans, they still did it. It was strange to say the least, considering it was something they never wanted in homeworld. Up there, everything was bustling, there was never a second of relaxation because you were always working. No matter what, you had a purpose to do, why you were created was to do something, and if you stopped it, then you were as useless as a cracked gem. Up there, no moment held a folly of exhaustion, because you couldn't be tired. No moment had a break, it all was meant to be so fast and alive, you wouldn't even see the thousands of years pass by the infinite lifespan gems owned. 

 "I want to show that clod how much better it is to be able to relax a little. She's rather uptight, maybe needs a polish." The small, spunky gem would say, head up towards the sky in their rush of pride. They enjoyed the rest, even without the need, it made them feel like they truly were on earth. That this wasn't homeworld, and there was a second that you could relax. Peridot normally claimed it as a protest against her diamond, which was yellow No matter what, Peridot was always so prideful when it came to talking about the diamonds, saying she left them to help Steven because he showed her what true living and life was. She would do what she could to help him and the Crystal gems, or clods in her version

For Lapis, she had no bond to this planet, her home was up there, in the stars so far away. A place that had changed so much, that was faster than before, lacking so much, it wasn't what she left. No matter what it seemed, she tried to get accustomed to the traditions, the new way of life, she tried so hard to love it all over again. But, she couldn't. The world seemed too fast, to where a point of breath was considered a break enough. The technology was too much for her to really understand, and frustrated her greatly. The years trapped in the mirror made so much slip by, so much change at once, the simple time of being a tool for others to get knowledge, the perfect depiction of Blue Diamonds legacy if you truly think of it. A shattering, painful life of hers with her young beloved Pink gone, her rule holding the creation of Lapis Lazuli, Aquamarines, and Sapphires, the ladder built for predictions, the second being made for memory, and telling the inhabitance of lands, and Lapis being able to use the water of the lands to terraform, create and shape. Which is much of a sense, holds wisdom, knowledge, and high-class intellect. Truly, the meaning and form of her former Diamond. 

In this night, Lapis couldn't sleep, her mind was running utterly wild, she enjoyed sleep, but even these days it became a nightmare. She liked it because it gave her a sense of relaxation and passed the time that she would have to be awake at homeworld. But, with the violation of Jasper and the abyss of water, her mind couldn't stop going back to it. She would wake up a mess that Peridot would worriedly fix with staying awake and watching shows with. Though, tonight she was sure not to wake her up. They still weren't friends, and in all sense, frenemies. Lapis did appreciate the gestures, but still held the grudges, and anger of Peridot helping Jasper on his mission, for taking her, and then her being part of the timeline that ultimately stuck them together in some hellscape in her very element. 

Her dark, pristine blue eyes stared into the vat of water dug into the ground beside the barn. She had just used it to save Steven and Peridot from Homeworld coming for her. And since then she had felt cold, dead, empty. Using her element felt so... Strange. Using it after for so long using it only to encase the cursed gem Jasper deeper and deeper below sea level. Yet, with all the pain panging her soul, she felt a complement to it, she felt it interacting with her, coursing her very projected body. For so long, it had been her enemy, her weapon, using it to keep **Malachite** below the waves and waters. And now using it for good, conflicted her. Was she still in touch with her powers? Had Jasper forever ruined the elation and exhilaration of power that once coursed the gem? So much had changed for her in those months, holding them in place, always being so angry, and tired, that she'd lash on them, yell at them with all she could, and with any words at her disposal. Though the words never overbore the pain of Jaspers brute force and strength, their lashing out was much worse than hers, and the former marks that still grazed her light formed body still remained. 

Slowly, she sat beside the water, staring into it. It wasn't moving at all, nothing daring to ruin the peace within it with the moon and stars sending small, clear reflections of the sky. Her gaze, like the water, didn't move from staring into it. It felt like for once, she was staring into a mirror and one that she wasn't encased in. She was staring into herself, into her soul. Water was her element, part of her abuse. And yet, with so much pain, she wanted nothing more but to submerge her body below the merky, untelling water, it was her pain, but the powers inside her that connected herself to it made it feel like a twisted therapy. 

With her movements being hesitant, fearful, she dipped one of her feet into the water, watching as the motion rippled out across the pool's surface, the once clear reflection changing into bubbly forms of itself. Her eyes still stayed on, as she watched her foot be submerged further into the cold, daunting liquid. A sigh escaped her lips, it wasn't strained at all, it was, in a sense, a sign of relief. Her confliction rose, she shouldn't be wanting to feel the water across her, she should be holding the same views of it like Peridot, or Jasper, or the Crystel gems. She should be angry at it, she should vow to never use it again, to stay away from it as long as she may live until shattered or cracked once more. Yet, here she sat, at the dead of night in the country side, crickets ringing in her ears like stinging drums, with her foot in a pond. 

The water wasn't painful, the cold was blissful, and calming. Something that it wasn't for so long. And soon, it felt as if her conviction was gone, and she was putting her other foot in, her hands were firmly planted into the ground as she scooted forward, now moving with haste as her skirt was soon going into the water, lifting with air pockets, but she still kept going. And soon, her head was the only thing above the water. 

She looked up at the sky, and a painful memory shattered into her mind of when she became that beast. She remembered looking up into the sky, Jasper thrashing and throwing about, hitting her with all her strength and Lapis so close to poofing from her not made for the battle frame. And in that moment, like now, she felt the peace of the water, the cool bliss that sent waves of peace through her despite the pain in her, the pain in her mind to accepting being bound to this abusive, close-minded homeworld gem for the rest of her life, at least, when it was intended to last forever. And the memory was clear when she could see everything get darker, darker, till nothing could be seen of the world above but the dusk waters she now resided. 

Something told she had to relive this all, that this was the only way to heal despite the sting in her eyes with tears cascading telling her to get out of the water. To get out of the nightmare, but it was too late. Even with how much it had pained her, she trusted the water, she trusted it more than her own thoughts because, in a way, her own gem was her mind, but the liquid gold was her heart. And, she would follow it till the ends of the earth if it meant this agony would end. 

And so, the young, mentally terrorized gem let her body sink, watch as the world above once again got darker, her air being stolen, even without requiring it, the sense of it being incompatible in the small pool was terrifying.

It seemed unlike the ocean, this was made of fresh water, presumably with a hose to fill it up that used the clean water that was drinkable. It was so much different from the salty scapes, that dried her lips and the skin of the beast greatly, that made her body feel numb, and like nothing, putting in the protective ways of it to an advantage when it came to Jaspers abuse. But this, it wasn't numbing, it was all feeling. She could feel it all, all the pain inside, she wasn't dull, she wasn't thinking of Steven, seeing him and telling him to go, or telling herself she was better off kilometers away from the world, and so much farther from the sky she desperately wished to return to. 

Her body slowly hit the bottom of the pool, and it was actually quite deep, something Lapis didn't expect when she had sunk. Her eyes stared up at the surface of the water still, which was now dark, like the world around her. She couldn't see her hands that much even in front of her own eyes, other when they covered the dim coming in light of the moon that seemed so far above. This wasn't the ocean, it wasn't the salty sea of dull, painful numbness, where she could barely feel the passing fish, her body extremely battered. This wasn't when she barely could hold her own mind awake to keep Jasper strapped there, and the longer they stayed together, the more it seemed she liked to be there. She started to mock the place, mock that Lapis was weak, and beat them down until they were. To where they had full fledge of her powers. She had heard that fusion was meant to be a union of power and wonder. She had never required the need to fuse when she would terraform, as herself and the other Lapis' were strong, and were built to hold their own. It was meant to be strengthening, and for gems of difference, it was supposed to be the total union of difference. A way of accepting the other one for their powers, flaws that Homeworld refused the existence of... It was supposed to be something of true power and happiness, sanctuary. Her version was twisted, tiring, agonizing on both ends, and yet some part of her, from being strapped for so long, told her she missed it. It had said once that she and Jasper would be here together forever and were happy. 

The longer her body stayed under the bliss of the water, she realized it not to be true. It wasn't Jasper she missed, it was water. It was her life force, her purpose on homeworld and here to wield it, and without it, she realized how truly empty she was without it. With it here, she felt alive, she felt like her old self, just a little bit. She felt more and more like she was the gem she was before being sent to this cursed planet so far long ago to terraform before Bismuth had struck her light made a body with a single hit and she was out to heal. A sense of joy started in her, and if she was surfaced she would be sure that tears would be dripping down her face. She had felt tied to Jasper, because she was her last tie to the ocean, to her heart. She had taken advantage of her lively hood, her heart, her whole mind in general. And when it was gone, it had driven her mad. She missed it, she missed being in it for so long. She felt as currents formed below her, and she was standing, the dirt ground below her feet. More pressure below her feet built up more and more, and soon, she let herself burst, sending her high above the water and in the air, staring up at the moon, the bright sky above her seeming more infinite than ever as her aqua wings spread out behind her from her gem, stretching widely as she let out a battle cry, the tears that the water didn't allow from absorption now cascading fully down her face and cheeks, a wide grin on her face as she let out a laugh, her signature snort following as she flew around. In a new sense of pride and life in her with her love for her heart back. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was enjoyable if people actually do really like this, then perhaps I'll make it a series, but for now, I think I like it the way I left it. I know some may not like I made it a slightly happy ending, instead of more painful, but I feel like Lapis would feel less pained when with water because it is her life, powers and basically everything when it comes to her character. It would be her first step of healing from the abuse, to accept and love her powers again, to trust in them and herself.
> 
> Also, If I did continue this, then more of the Lapidot relationship would show, as I see her as vital for Lapis to heal.


End file.
